Hi, I'm a Christian. Help Me Disprove My Religion!

[robvalue]

That's right The truth doesn't need protecting, nor does it need threats to get people to believe it. The truth speaks for itself.

So never be afraid to keep learning and asking questions!

[Wyrd of Gawd]

One thing is indisputable. Not one person in the history of humanity has ever had enough faith in Jesus to tell a mountain to jump into the sea and it will do as commanded as Jesus said such a person can do if he has enough faith in him.

Therefore, everyone who claims that he believes in Jesus is a bald-faced liar. Hell, even his own disciples didn't believe in him and they supposedly personally knew him. So for someone in the 21st Century to blab about how he believes in Jesus is asinine. The person is simply a liar.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Where is your counter-evidence?

Counter-evidence of what, exactly? 

All I did was break apart the reasons the "hard evidence" you suggested was not, in fact, hard evidence, but instead relied on a number of fairly obvious assumptions to qualify as even weak evidence. I happen to think it does  qualify as weak evidence, but that's just my take on it.

[Aractus]

Counter-evidence of what, exactly? 

All I did was break apart the reasons the "hard evidence" you suggested was not, in fact, hard evidence, but instead relied on a number of fairly obvious assumptions to qualify as even weak evidence. I happen to think it does  qualify as weak evidence, but that's just my take on it.

Firstly, it's not I who said there is "hard evidence" it is NT scholars like Erhman and Hurtado. And I've previously provided links to where both of them have said explicitly that there is hard evidence.

Secondly, what qualifies you to say the evidence is "weak"?

Let me give a personal example. I can prove to my satisfaction that my friend Trevor died when he was 17 in 2000. I know his DOB, I know his date of death, I know his family, and I attended his funeral. However he was cremated and he has no plot.

What physical evidence do you suppose there is of his existence besides anecdotal evidence like mine?

[downbeatplumb]

Counter-evidence of what, exactly? 

All I did was break apart the reasons the "hard evidence" you suggested was not, in fact, hard evidence, but instead relied on a number of fairly obvious assumptions to qualify as even weak evidence. I happen to think it does  qualify as weak evidence, but that's just my take on it.

Firstly, it's not I who said there is "hard evidence" it is NT scholars like Erhman and Hurtado. And I've previously provided links to where both of them have said explicitly that there is hard evidence.

Secondly, what qualifies you to say the evidence is "weak"?

Let me give a personal example. I can prove to my satisfaction that my friend Trevor died when he was 17 in 2000. I know his DOB, I know his date of death, I know his family, and I attended his funeral. However he was cremated and he has no plot.

What physical evidence do you suppose there is of his existence besides anecdotal evidence like mine?

Multiple public records, medical casefiles, photos of him stuff he collected, there would be DNA traces on stuff around his room and so it goes on. There would be both direct and indirect evidence for his existence and there is also the fact that it is a mundane claim so only mundane evidence is required.

[pocaracas]

Just going from Aractus' reply here:
- The 7 undisputed from Paul: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon.
- 2 Thessalonians can be included
- Epistles of James and Jude

And... I can't see any other.
So, Randy, I deffer to your knowledge: what sort of christianity does that leave us with?

Essentially the same that we see today and for this reason: Jesus founded an infallible Church which existed long BEFORE the NT was written or formally canonized. So, even without it, the Oral Tradition of the Church would be sufficient to pass along the core message just as it was long before the invention of the printing press.

However, if you are asking whether there are any doctrines that would be missing as a result of removing specific books from the Bible, again, I say that because the writings of the NT were a reflection of what the Church was preaching and teaching orally (ie, baptism of infants, confession of sins to a priest, the real presence in the Eucharist, etc.), everything that we have today was present in the Early Church before inscripturation.

IOW, the NT authors captured on paper what the Church was already preaching; they did not add to what the Church already knew.

yeah... but there were several alleged bishops/priests preaching a slightly different message, on several places.
Take the gospel of Peter that was found in the tomb of an 8th century egyptian monk...
Or the tale of Thecla, the female companion of Paul...
Or many other views that existed... how can we tell that the true teachings of Jesus are the ones preached by the catholic church?
The notion of the trinity comes well after the fact - would this view still be held, if the roman christians hadn't accepted Paul's teachings?

And yes, I know I'm mixing a bunch of stuff into one bag, but, like you know so well, it's a broad subject.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Whoever made up and/or wrote down those stories, bro. It could have been anyone, and I honestly don't care.

Are you really saying you believe an anonymous person came up with the parable of the Good Samaritan?

No, it's far more likely that it was a pseudonymous person, like the people who wrote most of the New Testament and much of the overall Bible. It was years (supposedly) before anything about Jesus was even written down, so there's really very little way to tell which details/parables would have been added/embellished over time. About all we can say for sure is, "None of this magic stuff happened." I just happen to believe that most/all of the rest of it it probably didn't happen (or at least there's no reason to positively believe it did), whereas you seem to believe that anything that isn't magical probably did happen because the Bible and your two favorite pet scholars say so.

[Aractus]

Multiple public records, medical casefiles, photos of him stuff he collected, there would be DNA traces on stuff around his room and so it goes on. There would be both direct and indirect evidence for his existence and there is also the fact that it is a mundane claim so only mundane evidence is required.

DBP you should be very careful because I'm talking about a real person who obviously meant a lot to me. Suppose I gave you his DNA - what would you compare it to? How would you identify it? It's been 15 years (nearly) since his death.

DNA, photos, and medical records are things that didn't exist and were not accessible in the ancient world.

Scholars unanimously tell us that Jesus and Paul existed. If you're going to dispute it then provide valid evidence.

[Aractus]

No, it's far more likely that it was ...

Provide a scholarly reference please.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Counter-evidence of what, exactly? 

All I did was break apart the reasons the "hard evidence" you suggested was not, in fact, hard evidence, but instead relied on a number of fairly obvious assumptions to qualify as even weak evidence. I happen to think it does  qualify as weak evidence, but that's just my take on it.

Firstly, it's not I who said there is "hard evidence" it is NT scholars like Erhman and Hurtado. And I've previously provided links to where both of them have said explicitly that there is hard evidence.

Yes, I watched the Ehrman-vs-InfidelGuy video you linked to. Ehrman speaks of Paul's writings as indicating that Paul's "throwaway" comments about James the brother of Jesus indicates to him that Paul knew the friends and family of Jesus. That may well be the case, but it is nevertheless an inference. Again, and I want to make this plain since you seem to be arguing as though I think Jesus didn't exist: I am convinced by the totality of the circumstantial evidence that Jesus was a real person. The place where he says it's "hard" evidence seemed not to be a statement of fact, but exasperation at InfidelGuy's aggressive and repeated claim that Jesus never existed, an emotional retort rather than a statement of historical fact, if you will, which is why Ehrman launched into discussions of things like the existence of Julius Caesar and the Holocaust.

Secondly, what qualifies you to say the evidence is "weak"?

Because I can read, and my brain works?

If you must make an inference about a piece of evidence, rather than it producing an inescapable conclusion, then it is weak evidence. We must infer that Paul's comments indicate he knew James, et al., and we must infer that Tacitus got his information from an official source, rather than just passing on Christian convicts' comments secondhand, it we're to say it proves anything than what the soon-to-be-martyrs thought. Same goes with Josephus. Neither of them directly proves anything unless we have positive evidence of the official Roman records of the crucifixion, which we do not, and there are several elements that render an "official records" concept dubious, which we have discussed.

Let me give a personal example. I can prove to my satisfaction that my friend Trevor died when he was 17 in 2000. I know his DOB, I know his date of death, I know his family, and I attended his funeral. However he was cremated and he has no plot.

What physical evidence do you suppose there is of his existence besides anecdotal evidence like mine?

As has been pointed out to you by others, if I found a letter saying you had a friend named Trevor who died at age 17 in 2000, I would tentatively accept that as genuine because I had no reason to argue with it, and I would believe in Trevor's existence only to the degree that I had evidence for it. It's a low claim, so not much proof is required, nor is much belief required. It comes down to a "why not?"

But if that letter said that Trevor was a miracle worker sent by God, killed in Birmingham after a public trial for treason against the Crown, and that angry mobs had demanded his death, I would probably look for additional proofs of this much higher level of claim. If I then saw no news articles about a trial of that sort in Birmingham, and found that despite it being "public", only you and your circle of friends ever seem to have written about it... I'd probably be pretty skeptical of your claims about Trevor. Might I believe you had a friend named Trevor? Sure, why not. Miracle worker and executed in public for treason? Mmmm, no. Evidence is weak, and unconfirmed.

"In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume